Terms & Conditions of Use

1. Intellectual property and acceptable use

All Content on the Website, unless uploaded by Users, belongs to Bartha Contemporary Ltd, our artists or other rights holders, and is protected by copyright, trade marks, database rights and other intellectual property rights. You may view and retrieve the Content for your own personal, non-commercial use. You must not otherwise reproduce, modify, copy, distribute or use any Content for commercial purposes without our written permission.

2. Prohibited use

You may not use the Website in any way which causes, or may cause, damage to the Website or interferes with any other person's use or enjoyment of it; in any way which is harmful, unlawful, abusive, harassing, threatening or otherwise objectionable; or to make, transmit or store electronic copies of Content protected by copyright without the permission of the owner.

3. Client accounts

Client accounts are opened by invitation from the gallery. You must make sure the details you give us are correct and complete, and tell us promptly if they change. Your account is personal to you and may not be shared or transferred, and you are responsible for keeping your sign-in details confidential. We may suspend or close an account for a good reason, for example if you breach these terms or if we cannot complete the identity checks described in clause 8; we will tell you why unless the law prevents us.

4. Links to other websites

The Website may link to sites that we do not control. We are not responsible for their content or for how they handle your information.

5. Privacy

How we use personal data is explained in our Privacy Notice at barthacontemporary.com/privacy, including the cookies and similar technologies the Website uses and how to change your choices.

6. Our liability for the Website

We provide the Website free of charge, for general information. We take care to keep it accurate and available, but we cannot promise that it will always be complete, up to date or uninterrupted. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that the law does not allow us to limit, and nothing affects your statutory rights as a consumer. If you use the Website for business purposes, we are not liable to you for loss of profits, sales, business or revenue, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, loss or corruption of data, or any indirect or consequential loss. These website terms are governed by the law of England and Wales; clause 26 explains where a dispute can be brought.

7. Who these terms apply to

These terms apply to every purchase of an artwork from Bartha Contemporary Ltd made through this Website, by email or by telephone, whether you pay by card, by bank transfer or following an offer. Where a clause applies differently to consumers and to business buyers, it says so. You are a consumer if you are an individual buying wholly or mainly for purposes outside your trade, business, craft or profession. Nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer.

8. Who can buy, and identity checks

You must be 18 or over to buy from us. As an art market participant we must follow UK anti-money-laundering rules (clause 21). For that reason, card payment on this Website is available only to registered clients whose identity we have checked, and we carry out the check before your first purchase. Every other purchase is made by invoice and bank transfer after the same checks. If we cannot complete the checks, we cannot go ahead with the sale, and we will refund anything you have paid.

9. How to buy online

Works that show a "Buy now" button can be bought on the Website. These are the technical steps:

1. Choose the work. Its page shows the price, the description and whether the work is framed.
2. Sign in to your client account.
3. Before your first purchase, we check your identity (clause 8). We will tell you what we need.
4. Click "Buy now". The purchase window shows the price of the work, any export price adjustment (clause 13), the delivery charge and the total you will pay, in the currency you will be charged.
5. Enter your delivery address. You can review and correct the address, and any other details you have entered, in the purchase window before you continue, and on the payment page before you pay. If you notice a mistake after paying, email info@barthacontemporary.com at once.
6. Pay on Stripe's secure payment page. We never see or store your full card details.
7. When your payment has gone through, we email you an order confirmation. That email is our acceptance of your order (clause 10).

If you live outside the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, the purchase window does not take payment: we hold the work for you and contact you to arrange delivery and payment. We keep a record of every order, and you can ask us for a copy of your order and of these terms at any time. Contracts with us are concluded in English.

10. When the contract is formed

For an online card purchase, the contract is formed when we email you the order confirmation after your payment has gone through. For a purchase following an offer, an enquiry or an invoice, the contract is formed when we confirm our acceptance to you in writing, by email or letter. Clicking "Buy now", paying, requesting an invoice or making an offer is your offer to buy and is not yet a contract. If we cannot accept an order, for example because the work has just been sold through another channel, we will tell you and refund any payment in full without delay. Ownership of the work passes to you only when we have received full payment in cleared funds (clause 17).

11. Offers

Making an offer through the Website does not oblige us to accept it or to sell the work at the offered price or at all. We review every offer and reply by email. An offer is accepted only when we confirm acceptance in writing. After acceptance, payment is due within 14 days of the invoice date unless we agree otherwise in writing.

12. Prices and currency

Prices are in pounds sterling (GBP) unless the listing shows another currency. Before you pay online, the purchase window shows the total you will pay. If you pay in a currency other than the listing currency, we convert the total at the European Central Bank reference rate plus 2%, rounded up to the next 200 units of your currency; the amount shown in the purchase window is the amount charged. Prices on the Website may change, but a change never affects an order we have already confirmed. If we find that a price is wrong before we confirm your order, we will tell you, and you can choose to go ahead at the correct price or cancel. If we confirm an order at a price that is obviously wrong, in a way you could reasonably have recognised, we may end the contract and refund everything you have paid.

13. VAT, export and import charges

Most works are sold under the VAT Margin Scheme. Under the scheme, VAT is accounted for on the gallery's margin rather than on the full price, so the price you see already includes any VAT due and no VAT is shown separately on the invoice; a buyer cannot reclaim VAT on a margin-scheme sale. Where a work is not sold under the Margin Scheme, the invoice shows VAT separately and the price you are shown includes it. When we export a work to an address outside the United Kingdom and hold the evidence of export that HMRC requires, the sale is zero-rated for VAT. For online purchases by buyers in Europe and the United States, the purchase window shows a 10% export price adjustment deducted from the listed price. This is a commercial price adjustment that we offer on works we export; it is not a refund or a calculation of VAT. Import duties, import VAT and other charges in the country of destination are payable by the buyer. For deliveries to Europe they are invoiced to you directly by the shipping company; for the United States, duties may apply at the discretion of US Customs. We cannot estimate these charges for you.

14. Payment

Registered clients whose identity we have checked can pay by credit or debit card, processed by Stripe. Other purchases are paid by bank transfer against our invoice, which shows our bank details; payment is due within 14 days of the invoice date unless we agree otherwise in writing. Payment must come from an account in the name of the buyer shown on the invoice. We accept a payment from anyone else only with our prior agreement and after checks on the payer. We do not accept cash. A work is released or shipped only after we have received payment in cleared funds.

15. Artist's Resale Right

Artist's Resale Right is a royalty payable to an artist, or their estate, when a work is resold on the secondary market for 1,000 euros or more. Where it is due on a work we sell, it is included in the price we state and we pay it, unless we have agreed otherwise with you in writing. Works we sell on the primary market, coming directly from the artist's studio, are not subject to Artist's Resale Right.

16. Delivery

Standard delivery within the United Kingdom is free unless the listing or the purchase window says otherwise. For buyers in Europe and the United States, crating and shipping are charged as a percentage of the price and shown in the purchase window before you pay. For other destinations we quote crating and shipping before you pay. Works are packed and transported by specialist fine-art handlers, and we will agree a delivery date with you. Unless we agree a different date, we will deliver within 30 days of the contract being formed. If we are delayed by an event outside our control (clause 24), we will tell you and agree a new date with you; if the delay is long, you may end the contract and receive a full refund. Please inspect the work when it arrives, note any visible damage on the carrier's delivery note, and tell us as soon as you can, ideally within 48 hours, with photographs of the work and its packaging. This request does not affect your statutory rights.

17. Risk and ownership

If you are a consumer, the work is our responsibility until it comes into your physical possession, or that of someone you have nominated to receive it. A carrier that we arrange is not your nominee. If you ask for the work to be collected by a carrier of your own choosing that we did not offer, the work becomes your responsibility when we hand it to that carrier. If you buy as a business, the work becomes your responsibility when it is delivered to you or to a carrier you appoint, unless we agree otherwise in writing. Whoever you are, ownership of the work passes to you only when we have received full payment in cleared funds.

18. Description, condition and framing

We take care that the descriptions and images of works on the Website are accurate, and every work must match its description. Condition reports are available on request before you buy. Colours on screen can differ slightly from the physical work because of photography and screen settings. The sale includes the work as described in its listing. A frame is included only where the listing says the work is framed; otherwise frames, mounts, plinths and display fixtures that appear in photographs are not part of the sale.

19. Your right to cancel a purchase made at a distance

If you are a consumer and you buy online, by email or by telephone without visiting the gallery, you may cancel the contract within 14 days, without giving any reason. The 14 days begin on the day after you, or someone you have nominated (other than the carrier), receive the work. To cancel, tell us clearly before the period ends, by email to info@barthacontemporary.com or by letter to the gallery. You may use the model cancellation form on our Returns page at barthacontemporary.com/returns, but you do not have to. You must then send the work back, or hand it to us, within 14 days of telling us. We will refund the price and the cost of the original standard delivery within 14 days of receiving the work back, or of receiving evidence that you have sent it, whichever is earlier, using the payment method you used. If you chose a delivery option more expensive than our standard delivery, we refund only the cost of standard delivery. Because works must travel by fine-art courier, the direct cost of returning the work is yours. The most a return will cost, by the size of the work and whether it comes back from within the UK or from abroad, is set out on our Returns page, shown in the purchase window and repeated in your order confirmation. We may deduct from the refund only for a loss in the work's value caused by handling it beyond what is needed to establish its nature and characteristics. This right does not apply to a genuine commission made to your specification. It does not apply to purchases made in person at the gallery or on our stand at an art fair, or to business buyers. The full procedure is on the Returns page.

20. If a work is damaged, faulty or not as described

If you are a consumer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that a work must be as described, of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. If it is not, you can reject it within 30 days of delivery and receive a full refund, including delivery and return costs. After 30 days, or if you prefer, you can ask for a repair, or for a replacement where one exists; as most works are unique, a replacement is rarely possible, in which case you can ask for a price reduction or reject the work for a refund. You may have up to six years to bring a claim. Please tell us as soon as you can, ideally within 48 hours of delivery, with photographs of the work and its packaging, so that we can make the carrier's insurance claim; this request does not affect your statutory rights. We will arrange and pay for collection of a work that is damaged, faulty or not as described.

21. Anti-money laundering and sanctions

We are an art market participant under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. We must check the identity of buyers and sellers in any transaction, or series of linked transactions, worth 10,000 euros or more, and we check the identity of every client before a card purchase on this Website, whatever the price. We may ask about the source of the funds used to pay. We screen our clients and the other people in our records against the UK Sanctions List, the EU consolidated financial sanctions list, the US Treasury's OFAC lists (SDN and Consolidated non-SDN), the UN Security Council Consolidated List and the Swiss SECO sanctions list. While a member of staff reviews a possible match, which we aim to do within two working days, online payment, offers, invoices and payment links for that person are paused. We may decline, delay or cancel a transaction where the law requires it or where we cannot complete our checks. Our Anti-Money Laundering Statement at barthacontemporary.com/aml explains the checks in full.

22. Intellectual property in artworks

Buying a work does not transfer any intellectual property rights in it, including copyright, which remains with the artist unless the artist agrees otherwise in writing. You may not reproduce, publish or use images of the work for commercial purposes without the prior written consent of the copyright holder.

23. Our liability to you

If you are a consumer, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if both of us knew it might happen when the contract was made. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for breach of your statutory rights in relation to the work, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit. If you buy as a business, our total liability to you in connection with a sale is limited to the price you paid for the work, and we are not liable for loss of profits, business or revenue, or for any indirect or consequential loss.

24. Events outside our control

We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as severe weather, transport disruption, customs holds or industrial action. If such an event affects your order, we will contact you promptly to agree what happens next. If the delay is substantial, you may end the contract and receive a refund of everything you have paid for anything not delivered.

25. Complaints

If something has gone wrong, please contact us first at info@barthacontemporary.com or on +44 20 7985 0015. We will look into your complaint and reply as quickly as we can. Making a complaint to us does not affect your statutory rights or your right to go to court.

26. Governing law and courts

These terms, and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them, are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales; if you live in Scotland you may also bring proceedings in Scotland, and if you live in Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland. If you live outside the United Kingdom, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of your country of residence, and the choice of English law does not take that protection away. If you buy as a business, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

27. Where we use AI

On the Website you may meet two optional assistants, one you can type to and one you can speak with. Both are AI systems, are labelled as such where they appear, and can make mistakes; you can ask for a person at any time. Behind the scenes we use AI in these ways:

1. Artist biographies, press texts and social media posts may be drafted with AI. A member of staff reviews each one, and edits it where needed, before it is published.
2. Search-engine descriptions of our pages and image descriptions (the alternative text read out by screen readers) are generated automatically and published without individual review. We check them periodically and correct them when they are wrong.
3. AI suggests to our staff which works might interest a client and which conversations to follow up, and tags works by theme. These are suggestions only: a person decides what, if anything, to do with them.
4. We monitor what public AI answer services say about the gallery and its artists.

Prices, availability, offers, sales and bookings are always decided by a person. The one automatic step is in sanctions screening, which is not AI: an online sale can be paused while a member of staff reviews a possible match (clause 21), and a person then decides.

28. Our AI suppliers

We use models and services from four suppliers, under their data-processing terms: Anthropic (the Claude models) for the text assistant, for drafting, for search and image descriptions and for suggestions to our staff; ElevenLabs for the voice assistant and for speech; and OpenAI (the ChatGPT models) and Google (the Gemini models) for our monitoring of AI answer services, which sends no information about visitors or clients. Our Privacy Notice lists every supplier that processes personal data for us.

29. Transparency and human oversight

In line with Article 50 of the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), which we apply to every visitor wherever they are: you will always be told when you are dealing with an AI system rather than a person; text, images or audio that we publish and that were generated or materially altered by AI are marked as such where the Act requires it; and you may ask at any time to deal with a member of staff instead, by email, by telephone or in the chat. We do not use AI for any practice the Act prohibits, such as emotion recognition, biometric categorisation or social scoring, and we do not use it for any decision the Act classes as high-risk, including decisions about creditworthiness, employment or access to services. The assistants do not make decisions about you: they answer questions from the information on this Website and pass anything else to a person.

30. What is shared with AI suppliers

When you use the text assistant, the messages you type are sent to Anthropic so that it can answer you. When you use the voice assistant, your voice and the conversation are processed by ElevenLabs, which records the conversation and its transcript. Payment details, passwords and the contents of your client account are never sent to an AI supplier. For our internal tools, staff send only what a task needs; where a person is concerned, we send a pseudonymised extract (such as a reference code, a country and the artists they are interested in) and never a name or an email address. Anthropic's commercial terms do not allow it to use our content to train its models. Our Privacy Notice sets out how long conversations are kept and your rights over any personal data involved, including the right to object.

31. Limits of AI answers

Answers given by the assistants are for general information and convenience. They are not professional, financial or legal advice and they do not form part of any contract. The price and availability shown on a work's page on this Website are authoritative; if an assistant says something different, the page is right. Please confirm anything that matters to you with a member of staff before relying on it. If you believe an assistant has given a wrong or inappropriate answer, tell us at info@barthacontemporary.com and we will look into it.

32. Your choices

The assistants are optional; everything they can do for you can also be done by email, by telephone or by visiting the gallery. You may end a conversation at any time, ask us to delete a transcript, or object to our use of AI with your personal data where we rely on our legitimate interests. Our Privacy Notice explains these rights and how to use them.

Bartha Contemporary Ltd · 7 Ledbury Mews North, Notting Hill, London W11 2AF
Registered in England & Wales, Company No. 07863410 · Registered office: 36 Scotts Road, Bromley BR1 3QD
VAT No. GB 798 9421 55 · info@barthacontemporary.com

Last updated 5 October 2026.